


Dangerous

by darkandstormyslash



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Blackmail, Crossdressing, M/M, prostitution (mentions)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 22:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9464222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/pseuds/darkandstormyslash
Summary: Set in episode 1 (but spoilers for episode 3). After the meeting between James Delaney and the East India Company, clerk Godfrey runs home in a panic. And then goes straight to the Molly House to panic at a somewhat unsympathetic friend.





	

Godfrey leaves work as soon as he’s physically allowed, his hands are shaking as he hurries back to his small rented room. He’d known, of course, known ever since the man’s name was mentioned, that James Delaney was alive and in London. His bosses at the East India Trading Company had talked about little else.

But to actually see him in person…

He gulps down a few mouthfuls of watered-down brandy from an unlabeled bottle in the kitchen. His hands won't stop shaking. The business of the afternoon has gone straight down from his ears to his hands, without passing through his brain mid-way. Even now, he can barely remember what was said after James Delaney’s eyes met his. He remembers the stare, the sudden shock of realizing that the broken, scared and damaged body in front of him had the same eyes as the sparkling bright young man he'd known at the seminary all those years ago. He remembers James’s eyes narrowing, the brief confusion at seeing a familiar if unremembered face, and then the recognition…

Delaney _remembered_ him.

He rushes down to St James's as soon as it gets dark, crashing into the rather unconvincing and ineffectual bookshop that serves as a front for one of London's last functional Molly Houses, and down the stairs to collapse into the dressing room. He flings himself dramatically into a chair and gets a startled noise from Christopher Falsom – currently midway into a transformation from a dockside odd-job boy into a flirty little piece in stockings.

“He’s back, he’s alive and I fucking _saw_ him Kitty…”

He gets one eyebrow raised in return, and a dress thrown in his general direction. “What are you on about?”

“Delaney. Oh god. He saw me … he recognized me…”

“Is that Harry’s little piece?”

“What?” Godfrey gets a bit of a hold on himself, quickly stripping down to his underwear and tugging the dress over his shoulders while he tries to reorient his world back to the present. Right now he needs to get drunk, and get fucked, until he can’t remember Delaney’s eyes anymore. “No, God no. This is someone else. Someone from a long time ago.”

“Old lover?” Christopher, now fully Kitty, bats her eyelashes in the mirror and picks up a pot of powder. “I wouldn’t worry luv, nowadays if he sends Bow Street after you they’re as likely to lock him up as you. I tried to blackmail my Captain the other day and he told me, right to my face, he’d see me hang next to him. Spoilt the mood completely that did.”

“Not an old lover…” Godfrey turns away from the mirror and Kitty obligingly starts to lace up the back of his dress. “Old … friend. I loved him like mad, of course I did, but he’s - no. And now he’s come back but he’s … changed.”

Delaney in Godfrey’s memory hadn’t changed. If anything he’d grown a little younger, a little more carefree, romantic and beautiful in the safe protected world of Godfrey’s reminisces. Delaney looks broken now, but not broken like a mirror or an expensive vase; broken like a dog looks broken right before it lunges for the throat.

“Everyone changes, Goddy.” Kitty says with the artless certainty of a young man with little enough experience to think he knows everything.

“He recognized me…” Godfrey repeats, a little more insistent. He can’t quite articulate it, but he feels somehow deep inside him that being known by James Delaney is currently a very dangerous state to be in.

“Why would he care about you? Pass the rouge will you luv, I’ve got my Officer coming today.”

“I work for the East India Company. They’re, oh god Kitty, they want to kill him.” Godfrey realizes he sounds slightly hysterical, and given he’s now wearing a flouncy dress he decides to make the most of it and flings himself back at the chair, “They’re trying to _kill_ James _Delaney._ ”

“If your company wants to kill him.” Kitty ploughs on, tactless and uncaring, “He’ll probably end up dead.”

Godfrey gives a hysterical giggle, calming down momentarily so Kitty can brush some powder on his face. “Not a chance. If James Delaney was going to die, he would’ve done it already. It’s too late _now_.”

Kitty picks up a beauty spot and gently presses it against her left cheekbone. Godfrey can’t help a jealous little twist at just how much Kitty manages to look like a woman. Kitty’s still young enough for smooth skin, coupled with a slender figure and a naturally higher voice he’s pretty sure she could get away with walking around London in a dress. While Godfrey knows he’d be arrested the minute he stepped out the bookshop.

“He’s got hair shaved at the sides and back.” Godfrey says, watching Kitty fix her eyebrows in the mirror, “And a scar down one eye. If you see him, can you keep him out? Or at least warn me?”

“It’s not my business to keep big, rough, scarred men out of the bookshop, we’d lose half our customers.” Kitty smirks, “Make the girls _very_ disappointed.”

“Just come and warn me if you see him enter so I can run out the back.”

“Dressed like that?”

“Kitty!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll let you know if I see him. If I haven’t got my head up Davey’s skirts. Which is a distinct possibility.” She winks at him in the mirror and then hands over a bottle of gin. “Get that in you, you’re a bloody misery tonight.”

“He’s going to kill me…” Godfrey mumbles around the bottle. “I know he is.”

For the first time Kitty almost looks sympathetic, pressing a wig down over his hair and then linking an arm in his, “Oh Goddy, you bloody well know how to choose them don’t you?”

“Ah, fuck it.” Godfrey takes a final swig of the gin then tugs up the bodice of his dress, “Let’s go. I doubt James Delaney would be seen dead in a place like this.”

Kitty giggles and kicks up her heel, and they head out into the smoky sordid rooms of the Molly House. But even alcohol and randy army officers can’t shake the feeling of deep unease that Godfrey carries with him as he staggers back home in respectable clothes and only a small swipe of powder left on his face.

James Delaney knows who he is.

And James Delaney is a very dangerous man to know.


End file.
